Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
I am grateful for the statement. It is wonderful news on exports; it shows that all the pessimism at the time of the referendum was completely wrong. I fully support the approach of the Secretary of State in delaying the target for battery vehicles, because people are not buying them in enough quantities, but will she add to that by adopting the advice of Stellantis not to fine motor manufacturers here for producing good petrol and diesel cars before people are ready to buy electric ones, because that is putting off investors?
Kemi Badenoch (The Secretary of State for Business and Trade):
I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes. This is something that we have heard from some bodies in industry. The auto sector is giving us two different messages. Some people want us to bring the mandate forward and make the change faster; others want us to delay it. It is a very tricky balance. We understand the concerns. We do not want to put additional burdens on business, so he is right to make that point. I have made representations to the Transport Secretary, but this is his policy area, and he will make the ultimate decision.
May 9, 2024
Jeez, can the flim flam in Westminster get any worse. Bad-Enoch bad….
May 9, 2024
…as you know Sir John none of us will make a decision, so of course I pass on the request…(smiling) murmur ‘good luck’.
May 9, 2024
The UK auto industry will be destroyed as is the plan
Britain will become like Cuba with 50 year old vehicles still on the road.
EVs are nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with reducing car ownership
May 9, 2024
Cuba …and with so much more style and character than the wind-tunnel lookalikes using mostly common parts with a dozen other makes.
May 9, 2024
The current regulations to impose the transition to EVs and stop production of ICE vehicles is ludicrous. JLR has just announced it is stopping production of 6 cylinder petrol engines Defenders because of it. The 6 cylinder petrol and diesel versions of their engine range are among the very best available anywhere. Yet their use is being curtailed by arbitrary rules imposed by this government.
May 9, 2024
That will also curtail any research & development, any new innovation & invention, any further investment in the internal combustion engine and its fuels ….just a bad time to be human ….its like banning books
May 9, 2024
There was an interesting article in today’s Telegraph by Sir Jim Ratcliffe. of Ineos re the interim EV solution for addressing range issues is Hybrids and Range Extenders.
May 9, 2024
The only range EV solution, is the return to fossil fuels
May 9, 2024
Not at all a tricky balance at all, just scrap the idiotic net zero stop all subsidies and let the market decide. Of course some manufacturers (heavily into EV investment) want you to force these duff cars onto people so they can dump there rip off cars on to people. Your job is to look after the public not the car manufacturers. Government did the damaging in the first place by making manufacturers go down the mistaken EV root. Toyota get it right.
EV cars are far more expensive, less practical, heavier, do more road damage, take hours to “refill” have limited ranges, depreciate more quickly, batteries decay rapidly, when they catch fire cannot be put out, are sensibly banned from some ferries and they produce more CO2 than keeping you old car – so why did the morons in government ever push and subsidise them? Remind me.
May 9, 2024
Transport Sec. Mark Harper read PPE so he will not know the price of a KWH of battery or how many charge cycles car batteries will last for or how much of the electricity will come from Gas or Coal anyway. Prob. no science past O level GCSs. Nor will he understand that they produce more CO2 not less and are totally impractical esp. if you have no off street parking at home. The DoT claim on web sites that cycling and walking produce no CO2 direct or indirect. So they are clearly staffed by blatant liars or total idiots. At least they did not add “unequivocally”!
May 9, 2024
+1
May 9, 2024
Rather than letting the market decide based on what is available, sensible manufacturers first ask consumers what they want using sophisticated research. They then produce the best match they can make with strongest competitive advantage and highest return on their investment. Governments interfering with their own rules distort the market, adding only muddle and waste.
May 10, 2024
JR says “Since we left we have avoided 71000 new Directives and Regulations” still vastly over regulated (and often with absurdly misdirected regulations as with the bank, landlords, health and safety…) and still many more home grown regulations. Absurdly restrictive and usually totally misguided and slow planning restrictions too. Endless job creation schemes for essentially parasitic activities and pointless jobs.
May 9, 2024
God forbid, a government who tells a car company what and how many cars they should manufacture. If that isn’t Communism then I don’t what is
Disgusting, repulsive and utterly without precedent except in wartime
And what is even worse than a bloody useless Tory government who doesn’t give a toss anymore doing this is a government who actually believes in this dictatorial crap, Labour
I feel like I am living in a parallel universe
May 9, 2024
It clearly is communism …and not from a labour party but a tory party
May 9, 2024
Numerous 5-year Plans being drafted as we read these comments.
May 9, 2024
Exactly.
May 9, 2024
So Kemi Badenoch doesn’t listen to the people, the customer nor the consumer …only the SMMT and other motor-car lobbyists
May 10, 2024
Seems so!
May 9, 2024
Thank you for finding an early opportunity to raise the issue in the House. I do wonder whether the decision rests with Mr Harper, or whether his civil servants would threaten to overrule him via the socket puppet green lobby and the courts should he try to be sensible and can the quotas and tax.
May 9, 2024
Are the Tories trying to bankrupt vehicle manufacturers with their Arts graduate level ignorance and stupidity?
Its bad enough for vehicle manufacturers having to try to anticipate public demand for their vehicles so they either don’t run out of capacity or fill fields full of unwanted vehicles which then have to be marked down severely to clear them but forcing manufacturers to make too many vehicles for which there is no market demand means that their businesses will be put under severe financial pressure as a result of huge capital investments in unsaleable vehicles and not enough income from the sale of vehicles for which there is demand; then supposing the market for EVs picks up, it will be for the latest models not those rotting in fields whose batteries will no doubt have deteriorated as well. That is assuming of course that the electrical infrastructure will support all those vehicles.
This is not a transport issue; it is an issue relevant to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero or more appropriately the Department for Moronism and an Oxymoron which is operating this industry wrecking ball which is adversely affecting every energy user in the country.
May 9, 2024
Dear Sir John,
In response to your last thread, it may be cynical but it appears to me that any attempt to get the economy growing and get money in peoples pockets will simply be stamped on by the Bank of England, who will take equal countermeasures. In their mission to stamp on inflation, they want to take money out of the economy just as the Government wants to get money into the economy, and via interest-rates, and their QT programme indemnified by the taxpayer, that’s just what they’re doing. That means we are likely to continue in a stalemate on the edge of recession for an indeterminate period.
It may be an oversimplification, but the only way I see out of this is to increase supply. Increase supply of energy, food, and housing, and you can drive down prices without driving down demand, and can grow the economy outside of the purview of the Bank.
Increasing supply is extremely unpopular not just with environmentalists, but also with many in the financial industry, who prefer the high profits involved in inflated commodities. I saw an interview with an investment fund manager who had left BP in no uncertain terms that his investors were strongly opposed to greater exploration because it might drive down prices – a truly depressing exchange.
Couple of things we can and should do to increase supply:
– Oil explorations are currently considered as operating expense not capital expense – this means they aren’t tax deductible which needs reform. Bringing new energy supply on-stream should be strongly incentivised.
– Completely mad that the Lords sent back Gove’s nutrient reform that would have allowed 100,000 homes currently blocked from being built to be built, and he just gave up. That man is a veritable husk of his former self. Can it not be put into a budget and got past the Lords that way?
– Revive the project to build the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project, promising a new era of reliable and cheaper renewables – this was unjustifiably canned by the CS in Theresa May’s day, and the vfm argments used then have since been totally upended by the rising price tag for nuclear and fluctuations in gas. It’s exactly the sort of inspiring big story the Tories need to revive their fortunes in Wales and elsewhere.
Of course there are many, many more – incentivise farmers to produce more food, lift the ban on fracking, etc. etc.
I’ve been seeing a lot more questioning of the Bank’s bond selloff in the media recently – well done for finally getting some traction. Keep at it.
Kind regards,
SR
May 10, 2024
PS :
Even the captured Royal Society writes :
“As CO2 concentrations increase, the absorption at the centre of the strong band is already so intense that it plays little role in causing additional warming. However, more energy is absorbed in the weaker bands and in the wings of the strong band, causing the surface and lower atmosphere to warm further.”
But note no quantification of the GHG effect from the weaker bands and the wings of the strong band because this is negligible as proven by Happer & Wijngaarden.
https://royalsociety.org/news-resources/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-8/